Finally, finally, took the time to go get my UB Card (need to be prepared for buying CS4 when it comes out in October). Bad hair day, for sure, with the wind. Hard to read, but I am technically in the staff category at UB.



The company I work for is just somewhat related to UB, I am not actually teaching or anything crazy.

I am eligible for staff parking on campus though

Have the matrix hooked up to the LED driver chip and that to the microcontroller. Will figure out how to program it tomorrow. Mmm, bitshifting.

This is a freaking 4 hour news cycle election.

I usually try very hard to stay out of commenting on politics on e:strip, and confine my anti-religion rants to 2 or 3 per year, but I'm falling under the weight of an urgent need to talk about every little detail of the political season.

Aaargh. 2 more months to go.

So, after a couple days of revelations about Sarah Palin, the nail in the coffin comes: she was a member of an organization that sought Alaskan sovereign nation status.

Yes, that's right: John McCain choose a secessionist for his running mate, and his slogan is "Country First". Clearly they didn't check Palin out at all. He just sort of panicked, I suppose.

Can you imagine if Obama had belonged to a 3rd party that in any (even minor) way challenged the US's legitimacy?

Alaskan Independence Party. Source:

I'm building a DIY version of this Tengu thing ( ) for my first full project.

I've got the LEDs for the eyes in and programmable, and have the face matrix assembled but that's not yet programmed. It will eventually be hooked up to sensors to react to the environment as well.

So far this weekend I've spent a lot of time relearning C and especially pointers. Matrix and timings for the rest of the animations will be challenging, too. Trying to fit everything in a few Kb of space brings me back.

Watching myself on video makes me realize I really need to work on my um's.

Here's a video of what it should end up looking like, although mine won't look so polished: